Petraeus adviser: Petraeus testimony misleading

 

In his column Sunday, New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt examined "the confusing world of statistics from Iraq." As TPM's Greg Sargent notes today, Hoyt quotes one of Gen. David Petraeus' own advisers, Stephen Biddle, saying that the Petraeus' September testimony to Congress was "potentially misleading" because it emphasized "isolated points" rather than "broad trends":

Biddle was an adviser to Petraeus last spring but believes the general's testimony was "potentially misleading" because it didn't discuss all the reasons why the numbers might have improved.

He said the best way to analyze statistics from Iraq is to gather all the numbers from all sources and look for broad trends instead of picking isolated points, as Petraeus did

 

.